


The Numbers of My Sins

by natanije



Series: Self-Indulgent Kakasaku AUs [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 17:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11063634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natanije/pseuds/natanije
Summary: Kakashi's arms have always been empty.Empty of sins.Devoid ofblood.





	The Numbers of My Sins

His arm has always been clean.

Even when he’s reached the age of seventeen, eighteen, nineteen and so on, it’s still clean.

Living in the world of shinobi, where conflicts happen almost daily, where every second can be any person’s last breath, it’s sometimes jarring to see a shinobi’s arm being clean.

His soulmate has never killed anyone, and he wonders if his soulmate is a civilian. That will certainly explain things, though he also thinks that it must be awkward, for his soulmate, because for all he knows he’s killed a whole lot of people, and what he knows of civilians is that they are somehow repulsed at the idea of taking somebody else’s life—they can just use shinobi as tools to do so, after all—therefore he thinks they must be somehow repulsed as well for knowing that their soulmate is a killer.

He kind of feels bad, but then he can’t imagine a life without being a shinobi, and he’s fine in continuing his duties, his soulmate’s opinion be damned.

If they cannot accept his occupation, then they’re not ‘meant to be’ after all anyway.

* * *

When Sakura is born, there are tallies on her wrists; tallies that seem to always grow in numbers whenever her parents do so much as to look away. It’s horrifying to see, for both of her parents are mere merchants, to see tallies upon tallies on their beloved daughter’s wrists, expanding ever so slowly to her lower arms.

It’s either her soulmate is a mass murderer or a shinobi.

In the end it doesn’t matter, because shinobi _are_ mass murderers.

It terrifies her mother, certainly, because why must her daughter’s soulmate be a ninja? The woman doesn’t know the average kill count shinobi has, but in this world where the only indicator of one’s soulmate are the tallies in their arms in which it shows how much people their soulmate has murdered, it is very rare for people to find their soulmates.

Even Sakura’s mother, who used to be a genin, has ten tallies on her wrists, and her husband none when she’s killed people in the past beforehand.

It’s rare for soulmates to be able to _meet_.

All the soulmates ever do is _tainting_ their arms with _sins_ , with _blood_ as red as the tallies on their arms.

And Sakura’s arms are filled with them.

Dozens and dozens of sins, all done by a single person.

* * *

Sakura knows she probably will never meet her soulmate, and the tallies in her arms are not the reason she wants to become a shinobi, really. She wants to be brave, to be courageous and kind like the kunoichi next door.

(And if she ends up killing somebody, it can’t be helped.

It certainly can be a nice revenge against her soulmate, whose little red tallies has reached her elbow by now.)

She’s not as unlucky—or lucky, depends on how people see it—as Uchiha Sasuke, whose hands had been filled with dozens of tallies only to fill up with _almost a hundred_ of new tallies the very moment the Uchiha Massacre occurred.

(All the while, the traitor’s arms must have been _empty_.)

She never bothers to cover her tallies like Sasuke does, as if it’s something to be ashamed of. Because she doesn’t know her soulmate and nobody can know either, it doesn’t matter for her if people sees her arms and think _mass murderer._

Her soulmate must be a ninja, a _damn good one_ , considering how much people they are able to _kill_ and still be alive even until now, considering how there’s another small tally showing up last week.

It doesn’t matter.

If anything, she hopes she can be as strong as her soulmate.

(Though perhaps she’ll tune down the mass murdering a little bit.

Can’t have her mother throwing up at the thought of her daughter becoming like _that_ , after all.)

* * *

The very first time he sees his new genin team, Kakashi almost balks at the sight of red on the little kunoichi.

Not only she has pink hair and red qipao, but her arms are literally filled with _red_. So many red tallies, the soulmark already reaching toward her upper arms.

( _Is her soulmate an ANBU?_ )

He’s expected Uchiha Sasuke’s arms, although bandaged; he _knows_ to expect hundreds of tallies over there. He doesn’t know about Naruto’s, considering from the time he’s guarded him as his ANBU guard, his arms have always been empty of tallies.

The girl—Haruno Sakura—takes in his gaze over her arms and scowls, as if daring him to comment about it.

And, well, he’s a shinobi, so he simply hums, and orders them to go to the rooftop.

* * *

The mission to Wave has been a disaster.

Haku, the one Naruto called as ‘pretty big sister but actually not a girl’, died because of him, from protecting Momochi Zabuza. Zabuza himself died soon after, right after he killed Gatou and the assassins the fat idiot hired.

Sasuke has almost died, if not for the precision and mercy Haku seemed to have.

Naruto unleashed a small tendril of the Kyuubi’s chakra, all because of the fury over Sasuke’s “death”.

And Sakura—

Sakura just killed a person.

A foolish samurai that tried to attack the bridge builder instead of the Demon of the Mist, and Sakura did what she had to do: fighting back.

Still, first kill is bound to be hard on anybody, no matter if it’s a shinobi or not.

It takes quite awhile for him to have Sakura’s tally-littered arms to stop shaking, but it gets resolved soon enough and the kids are sleeping after they got themselves cleaned up.

(He’ll have to take them to Psych Eval, especially Sakura, but—

But he believes they can manage. That they can endure.

He believes in them.)

Sighing, the Copy Nin takes off his vest and shirt, right after tugging his headband off. He’s covered in sweat and grime, as well as blood, which is normal considering his days in ANBU, but he’s been given fresh, cold and clean water for him to shower in and like hell he’s going to pass it up.

Reaching over to take off his right glove, Kakashi pauses at the red line on his wrist.

That’s…. not a scar.

He rubs at it, eyebrows furrowed.

It doesn’t fade, and it doesn’t smell like ink. It’s as if—

It’s a _tally_.

A tally that didn’t exist _this morning_.

A tally that means his _soulmate_ has recently killed a person.

After all these times, and his soulmate _just_ killed a person? When he’s _twenty-six_?

Kakashi stops short.

…Recently killed—

( _“Sakura,” gloved hands grabbing onto shaking ones, giving her reassuring squeezes while his lone eye scrutinizes the girl’s wavering green hues, “Sakura, calm down.”_

_Sakura takes in a shuddering breath, nodding through her haze._

_Beside her feet, the body of a samurai stays still.)_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a tease.
> 
> I know, I love you too.
> 
> Idk, maybe I'll continue this?


End file.
